Ever wonder why the roads sometimes look like garbage? It could be that they’re actually made from it. And that could be hurting our infrastructure costs in a big way.

A Queen’s University chemist, who’s been studying asphalt for the last 25 years, says the pavement on our streets may contain things like old roof shingles, reused pavement, vegetable oil and recycled motor oil.

The latter ingredient is particularly common, Simon Hesp says, and it’s making our roads crack and fall apart far sooner than they should.

WHAT’S IN THE ROADS?

Asphalt is made up of between 85-95% aggregate — things like gravel, stones and sand. What’s left is made up of a liquid asphalt that serves as a binding agent to hold the aggregate together.

"The recycling forces that have taken hold in North America to put a little bit of old pavement into the mixture has had unintended consequences that roads fail sooner, they produce potholes faster," Hesp said.

Some asphalt mixes even contain old roof shingles.

"What has been on your roof for 20 years you don’t want to put in the road because it’s going to fail very early,"

"The people who represent some of these companies say it’s been used for 30 years so it’s OK. But we have ample evidence that it’s not OK."

He said roads with recycled motor oil sometimes don’t make it to their one-year warranty. Ideally, they should last 25 years.

Since it costs about $1 million to put down one kilometre of road, the unexpected repairs are hard on cash-strapped municipalities and provinces.

And the recycled oil contains environmentally troublesome ingredients, like lead and other heavy metals.

"Why do we recycle engine oil? Because we don’t want to put it into the environment. But if the bottom 20% gets into the road, eventually it will get into the environment," he said.

WHERE IS THIS HAPPENING?

With the support of Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation, Hesp has found evidence of recycled motor oil in almost half the roads tested in the province. He said it’s also been discovered in Quebec, and all across the United States.

There’s a good chance it’s a problem in other Canadian provinces, too.

"I suspect it probably is, but no one is testing for it too much until recently," he said.

There are some exceptions. Alberta and Saskatchewan use locally sourced, high-quality asphalt, spokesmen for the provinces said.

Newfoundland and Labrador said it doesn’t allow recycled motor oil or "other additives which would compromise the quality of pavement used for provincial roads," spokeswoman Erin Shea said.

WHAT DO THE COMPANIES SAY?

The companies that use recycled engine oil say it’s just as effective as other binding agents, cheaper and perfectly safe, and they have their own studies to prove it.

When Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine banned recycled engine oil from being used in their pavement, their supplier, Montreal-based Bitumar, sued all four states.

The lawsuit was ultimately unsuccessful.

The company did not respond to requests for comment.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

Hesp’s advice for municipalities and provinces? "They must write better specifications into their contract language. Any and all modifiers and additives need to be disclosed and approved."

Some provinces — Nova Scotia, for example — already have that language.

But refineries can lie, or fail to report all the relevant info to distributors.

So, Hesp says, governments should follow Ontario’s lead and test the roads.

Ontario cities like Kingston and Timmins are already taking action.

"We’re making a difference," he said. "Municipalities are taking it on because they’ve been hurt and they’re small and they can’t afford early failures. If a road cracks early it’s very costly for the small taxpayers."

Almost Done!

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